


An Embarrassment of Chris-es

by sealdog



Category: Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 11:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5624671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealdog/pseuds/sealdog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>4 times Chris embarrassed himself in front of Wesker + 1 time he didn't.</p><p>pre-RE1 Alpha Team shenanigans, mostly gen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Embarrassment of Chris-es

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kashuan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kashuan/gifts).



> Originally done as a Christmas present for Kashuan. u can blame them for sucking me into RE tbh (kidding, ilu kash)

**1: Shooting**

Chris takes the earmuffs off and goes to pull in his target, crowing in triumph at the neatly centered collection of holes in the head.

“Who’s awesome? _I’m_ awesome, that’s right!” He pulls the target off the clip, and holds it up, admiring it.

Joseph’s head pops out from the divider to his left, a scowl on his face as he looks over Chris’ target jealously.

“God damnit, Redfield! It’s not classy to show off, okay?”

Chris waves his target at Joseph’s head, grinning as he says, “Jealousy is such an ugly color on you, Frost.”

“Yeah? You know who’s ugly? Your m—”

“Frost. Redfield.” Wesker’s voice cuts in, and both Chris and Joseph snap to attention, straightening up and turning to face him.

“If you’re done, get ready to pack up and move out. Bravo team’s shift ends in twenty minutes.”

“Yes sir!” Chris and Joseph chorus, and turn back to their own stations, Chris making a face at Joseph as he goes.

Chris checks that his gun is unloaded and wiped clean before dismantling it and putting it back into its box. Folding up his target and picking up his earmuffs, he turns and goes to follow where the rest of the team is queuing to hand in their items.

The captain’s in front, with Jill and Joseph queued between him and Chris, but when he hands in his target to the person at the collection counter, Chris gets a glimpse of it, and can’t help but exclaim.

“Oh wow, Wesker, you’re an even better shot that I thought!”

There’s a silence that follows his words. Chris closes his mouth and shuffles back into line, trying to ignore Joseph’s incredulous looks.

“Thank you, Chris.”

Wesker’s voice is very dry.

“Um, not that I meant anything bad or anything,” Chris hastens to say. “Just uh, nice shooting, I guess.”

Behind him, Barry clears his throat, and a foot nudges against the back of Chris’ leg. Chris takes the hint, and shuts up again, ears burning.

**2: Camping**

They’re in the forest, on either an actual mission, or a dumb team exercise thought up by the higher ups (Irons, Chris means Irons), and Chris is really beginning to hate everything. Mostly gnats, but also everything.

“Is there an evolutionary purpose to gnats?”

Beside him, Jill snorts, swatting at bugs of her own. “Obviously, Chris. Years of evolution, all meant to bring the bugs to you, Chris Redfield, in this day and age.”

Chris smacks and kills a bug, right on Jill’s shoulder. “What! There was a bug there, I swear,” he grins in response to her glare.

Jill socks him right in the shoulder, and walks on without him when he pretends to be felled, falling to the floor and clutching at his shoulder. Laughing (and still swatting, because _gnats_ ), Chris gets back up and follows after her.

When he catches up, the entire squad has stopped at the base of a massive tree, and is spread out.

“Chris, nice of you to finally catch up.” Wesker’s sunglasses are even harder to read in the dwindling light of the forest, but his mouth twitches in amusement when Chris practically sprints the last few steps to get into position next to Jill. “You and Jill set up the tents for tonight. Barry, you’re in charge of setting up the fire. Joseph, 4 o’clock, Brad, 8 o’clock. At least fifty meters out, come back within twenty. Joseph, no more mushrooms, or you’ll be doing the squad’s paperwork for the next month.”

They salute, and get to work.

When they’ve eaten the thankfully not mushroomey dinner, they settle down around the fire, checking their equipment for tomorrow as Wesker briefs them.

“There have been reports of illegal activity, possibly smuggling, going on higher in the mountains. Higher ups want us to scout out the area, verify these reports. If there’s any truth to them, Bravo team will work together with the police department to take care of things next shift, so we’re reconnaissance only, copy?”

“Yes sir.” Chris says along with the rest, attention focused on cleaning his gun.

“Shifts will be in twos, change every two hours. Chris, you’re with me on first shift.”

At that, Chris looks up, surprised. Normally he’s partnered with Jill, but Wesker’s sunglasses just reflect the campfire impassively.

“Got it, Captain.” Chris says, raising his eyebrows at Jill, who just returns it with a shrug and goes back to checking her kit.

The first hour of their shift goes pretty quietly, Chris and the captain taking it in turns to patrol the area. Chris does his best to be as professional and serious looking as possible, because he knows he’s kind of goofy, but he doesn’t want the captain to think that’s _all_ he is.

Time ticks on, punctuated by Chris’ attempts to slap at the gnats as quietly and subtly as possible. To his frustration and admiration, Wesker seems to be completely immune; there’s a clear space about a meter around him, the gnats just veering off through Wesker’s sheer willpower or something. Maybe they’re terrified off by the sunglasses. Chris wouldn’t blame them, honestly.

Once, Chris glances over after a particularly loud slap, and catches what could be a smile on Wesker’s face.

Towards the end of the shift, when Chris goes up for his final round, Wesker catches his arm as he walks by.

“Here, permethrin. Keeps the gnats away.” His voice is very definitely amused, and Chris flushes in embarrassment, even as he takes the bottle with a (hopefully) manly nod of thanks.

“Oh god, that’s genius, why didn’t I think of it?” Chris mutters to himself in what he’s sure is a very soft volume as he walks off to patrol.

“You’re welcome.” The captain’s voice floats out from behind him, and Chris waits till he’s out of sight before going to bang his head against an obliging tree nearby.

**3: Paperwork**

The end of a long and uneventful shift is always the worst, Chris decides. Shifts where nothing happens means he has no excuse, has to face all the accumulated paperwork from shifts where shit does happen, and he actually has an excuse to _not_ do paperwork.

It’s a terrible, self-fulfilling cycle, but it works.

Sort of.

Except on days when _nothing at all_ happens, and Chris is left to stare at the mountains of paper on his desk in despair.

Around him, the other members of his team are getting ready to leave already, or swamped with paperwork of their own. Chris exchanges a look of commiseration with Joseph, who’s got mountains of his own.

At the desk beside him, Jill is bent over a practically non existent stack of papers, and even as Chris watches, she finishes writing whatever she’s writing, and stands up, flinging her pen down.

“Done!”

“What! Jill, no, you’re breaking tradition!” Joseph exclaims, turning back to his paperwork with a panicked expression.

Chris chimes in, “Yeah, Jill come on, it’s always the three of us left with our paperwork, and we’re supposed to give up together and go get drunk, why must you betray us so?”

Jill ignores them both as she staples her papers and grabs her bag.

“Jilllllllll,” Chris whines, reaching out to her plaintively.

Snorting, Jill dodges and heads out, turning back only at the doorway. “Look on my empty desk, ye losers, and despair!” She says, opening her arms wide. “I’ve got a date, suckers! Bye, have fun with your paperwork!” With one last smug grin, she disappears.

Brad, who has a small mountain of his own, coughs and says, “You know, if you guys spend less time whining and more time actually doing your work, we’d all probably be able to leave in the next few hours or so.” Giving Joseph and Chris a pointed glare, he goes back to his paperwork.

Grumbling, Chris bends his head back down, and resumes filling in his thousandth form.

Soon, it’s only Chris and Joseph and their (smaller, but still no less intimidating) mountains of paper left in the office, and Chris is about to give in and leave it for his future self to deal with when the door to the captain’s office opens, and the captain himself steps out.

“Wesker? What are you still doing here?” Chris asks, confused. He’d thought the captain had finished way early and gone off already, like he usually does.

“Go on home. I’ll take care of the rest of your paperwork.” Wesker’s voice is long-suffering, and it takes Chris a second to get his meaning.

“Wait—what?” Chris sits up straight in his chair.

“Chris! Don’t ask, just say thank you!” Joseph hisses at him before grabbing his bag and standing up. “Thanks, Captain, see you next shift!” He says, and disappears, faster then Chris has ever seen him.

“You’re welcome,” Wesker says, crossing his arms and raising one eyebrow at Chris.

“Wow, I mean, thanks, Captain!” Chris says, standing up and shoving his chair back.

Wesker only waves a hand in response, watching as Chris packs up his bag. “Don’t leave it till so late next time,” he says, voice back to being as coolly neutral as ever.

“Sir, yes sir!” Chris salutes, grinning when Wesker tilts his head back in the way Chris has come to realize means he’s rolling his eyes behind the sunglasses.

Pulling the straps of his bag over his shoulders, Chris stands up and heads towards the exit. He pauses at the doorway, and turns back to look over the empty office. On the opposite side of the office, Wesker, still leaning against his door with his arms crossed over his chest, watches Chris impassively.

“Uh…” Chris trails off, before taking a deep breath and plunging on. “Thanks, Wesker. Seriously, you’re kinda…awesome.”

Okay, so Chris had intended to find another word, one that sounded a lot less stupidly star-struck. Wincing, he turns back to leave, hoping that Wesker has mercy and lets them both pretend like nothing happened.

“Thank you, Chris. Much appreciated.” Wesker’s voice is unreadable, but Chris takes it, and leaves, closing the door behind him with a pleased grin on his face.

**4: Cooking**

Chris normally doesn’t really do anything for Thanksgiving, hasn’t since he was a wide-eyed kid living with his family. Being in the army and then wandering around doesn’t really leave time for that. Or rather, in the Air Force, Thanksgiving had been “celebrated” with an extra apple in their rations, and that had been it.

He’s expecting the same thing with S.T.A.R.S., so when he walks in at the start of Alpha Team’s shift and sees a giant turkey on the reception desk, he’s understandably confused.

“Uh, what the hell?”

He looks around, but the only person in sight is Barry, who shrugs at Chris from where he’s slumped over his desk.

“Beats me. It was here when I got in,” Barry says.

Behind Chris, the door slams open, and Joseph steps in, only to bump into Chris.

“Whoa, why are you—what the hell is that?” Joseph yelps, shoving Chris aside and going forwards to the turkey.

“Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!” Jill cheers as she enters right on Joseph’s heels. “I’d list out the things I’m thankful for, but I have to see all your ugly mugs all day, so nevermind. Whoa, who brought the turkey?”

“Oh, _Thanksgiving_.” Chris says, feeling like an idiot. Right, that makes sense. For some reason, he'd been thinking it was the first clue to a murder mystery. Or something.

Brad trundles in after Jill, and goes right to his desk, seemingly oblivious to how everybody’s staring at the turkey.

“Brad, was it you?” Joseph calls.

Brad turns around, and Chris snorts at how his eyes are still half-closed. “Bwuh?”

“Okay, clearly not you.” Jill laughs, and moves over to her desk.

“Good, none of you are late. Happy Thanksgiving, squad.” The door to the captain’s office opens, and Wesker himself is right there, sunglasses on as always, and a knife in his hand. “Who wants to slice the turkey up?”

Wait, Wesker can cook?

“I never said I cooked the turkey, Chris.” Wesker hands the knife over to Joseph, who looks _way_ too gleeful for Chris’ reassurance. “But yes, I can cook.”

Crap, Chris totally said that out loud, didn’t he? He flushes at the amused looks of his teammates, and sits at his desk in silent embarrassment, ducking his head and turning to his paperwork in an attempt to ignore the burning of his ears.

Not long later, a plate thuds down on top of his paperwork, and he looks up, startled, only to see Jill’s grinning face as she sits on his desk.

“Try some of the captain’s turkey, go on.” She pushes a fork into his hand.

Chris looks around, only to see the rest of his squad eating voraciously. Well, everyone except Wesker, who’s flipping through an old file over in the corner and nodding along to Barry’s gesticulations. As Chris watches, a piece of turkey flies off Barry’s fork, and lands somewhere in the vicinity of the doorway.

Then Jill is taking the fork back from his hand, and scooping up a piece of turkey to shove into Chris’ mouth.

“Jill! Mmph—!” Chris splutters, but the turkey gets in, and he instinctively chews and swallows. “Oh, huh, that’s really good.”

Jill snorts, and hops off Chris’ desk to go back to her own, job clearly done.

“Yo captain! This turkey is great!” Chris calls out, before taking another mouthful.

“Thank you, Chris.” Wesker’s voice is very dry, and he doesn’t turn away from his file. “I’m glad you have so much faith in my culinary skills.”

“Dibs on the leftovers!” Chris yells, and leaps over his desk, papers flying everywhere, to grab the turkey from the table.

There’s a bit of a scuffle, but at the end of it, Chris emerges triumphant with a whole leg of turkey and some of its breast in a container, which he clutches to himself covetously, ignoring Joseph’s jealous glares.

“Thanks, Wesker, this is gonna feed me for like, a _month_ ,” Chris grins.

There’s a long silence in the room before an audible sigh goes around.

“What? Did I say something wrong?” Chris says, confused.

“No, nothing. You’re welcome, Chris.” Wesker snorts softly and shakes his head before going back to his office.

Behind his back, Jill makes a ‘loser’ sign at Chris, who gives her a hand sign of his own.

The next day, when Chris opens his apartment’s door to leave, there’s a stack of Tupperware right at his doorway, with a note on top in Wesker’s neat, compressed handwriting.

> This should last you exactly 28 days. –W

**+1: Chris**

It took weeks of planning, no small amount of blackmail, lots of pouting, and a promise to Barry to _never_ send him any more photos of Chris pouting “because seriously dude, I don’t need to see that shit, alright?” but Chris manages to do it. He convinces the department to let him book out a room for free, cajoles Brad into helping him decorate the place, convinces Rebecca and Enrico from Bravo Team to persuade the rest, and on the morning of the 25th, he’s got a Christmas party going on, with all members of the S.T.A.R.S. team and various family members participating.

As Chris looks around the pleasantly crowded room, he feels a swell of pride in his team. Richard actually managed to scrape together a pretty decent buffet of food with the budget Chris gave him, and the eggnog that Chris brought is pretty popular, going by the number of red cups around the room.

The only slightly wonky Christmas tree in the corner has amassed a few actual presents at its base too, to his surprise. He didn’t think people would actually turn up with gifts, but well.

Sipping from his own cup of eggnog, Chris makes his rounds, accepting rowdy well wishes and thumps on the back as he goes. The eggnog, along with Sullivan’s “punch” seems to be doing their work well, everyone’s slightly tipsy, friendlier than normal, and laughter rings through the room.

Well, nobody’s actually full out _drunk_ , because Team Alpha just finished their shift, and Team Bravo’s shift starts soon, but its still a nice level of tipsiness all around, just enough to keep things going.

When he’s back at the doorway, he leans against it, watching the party with proprietary pride. S.T.A.R.S. is still a fairly new subdivision, as far as divisions go, with only a year or so under its belt, but it’s beginning to feel like family for him, familiar faces and in jokes settling into a rhythm that feels comforting. Last Christmas, there hadn’t even been a party, everybody still too unfamiliar, too formal. This time though, this party, _his_ party, is going well, and he feels accomplishment and fondness swell in his chest.

A small considering noise next to him catches his attention, and he looks over to see Wesker, leaning on the opposite side of the doorway, watching him. Or at least, Chris _thinks_ Wesker’s watching him. Hard to tell with the sunglasses, but there’s always a small prickle of intensity that comes when you have the captain’s attention, and he definitely feels it now.

“Enjoying the party?” Chris asks, eggnog and all around good-feelings fuelling the grin he gives Wesker, who turns to look over the room, head tilting in consideration. Chris takes the opportunity to admire the sharp lines of Wesker’s nose and jawline, especially obvious in profile. When Wesker’s face begins to turn back, Chris glances down into his eggnog hurriedly.

“It’s good. Well done, Chris.” Wesker’s voice is as cool as ever, but when Chris looks back up, Wesker’s smiling, small but a smile nonetheless.

“Ah, I—thanks, Wesker! I tried, heh.” Chris sips at his eggnog, trying to cover up how thrilled he is by the compliment. They stand there, facing each other with the cup of eggnog between, and the party right next to them.

“Have you tried my eggnog, by the way?” He says, thrusting the cup out at Wesker when the silence between them feels like it’s gonna get awkward.

“Thank you, but—”

“Yo Chris, Wesker! Mistletoe!” Wesker is interrupted by a cheerful shout coming from within the room, and they both look up to see Enrico waving at them. Wait, no, slightly above them.

Chris looks up, only to see the sprig of mistletoe hanging above the doorway.

Oh, crap. Damnit, Brad!

Inside the room, everybody’s turned to face them now, people egging them on with cheers and wolf whistles.

“Oh my god, guys, don’t embarrass the captain, jeez!” Chris splutters, waving his cup threateningly at Enrico.

He moves forwards, intending to go strangle Brad or something, anything, literally anything at all to get out of this awkward situation, but is stopped by a hand on his upper arm.

Confused, he turns, only to catch a glimpse of Wesker’s small smile as his face comes closer. Chris closes his eyes instinctively, and then cool, surprisingly soft lips are brushing over his own.

The room behind him erupts in cheers, and Chris flushes, jumping a little when a tongue flicks out against his lower lip before Wesker’s drawing back, face as impassive as ever.

“Merry Christmas, Chris.”

**Author's Note:**

> All military/camping/Thanksgiving knowledge riffed off the internet and popular culture, plz don't kill me if I got shit wrong.
> 
> ps: I'm ssealdog on tumblr, come say hi :D


End file.
